JBFC II

I can see it being over 1000, 650 sold so far with probably 150-200 potd, on a good Friday that's a decent turnout in my opinion 

We took more on a Friday night on sky at the end of November.... 

There are many 17/18/19/20 year olds round bristol, like myself, who have never known rovers to be above us in the league, I've only seen us play them in the JPT as I've never even known them to be in the same league as us, despite frequenting AG since 2006.

It does really make you feel for them, imagine being so far below your rivals that there could be a married man with kids who has never seen you above your rivals in the league... 

1 hour ago, slartibartfast said:

Know absolutely zilch about rugby , BUT would II be right in assuming (typical BS ) they are recruiting "on the cheap"....if so, there seems to be a pattern emerging ! 

It's hard to compare football and rugby when it comes to finances. 

Charles Piutau will become the most expensive player in the world when he joins Bristol on 850-900k a year next year, that's around 18k a week which is what most championship players get. 

Bristol have mixed big bucks signings (Afoa, Piutau, Thacker) whilst signing some of the championships best players (like us getting the best players from league one and two for when we get promoted...) 

https://www.bristolrugby.co.uk/news/club-statement-joe-batley/

Shocked

Get well soon Joe 

4 hours ago, Club and Country said:

Apologies, forgot about madigan luatua etc 

just seem to be signing a huge number of players with no doubt more to come! 

And tbf we need a load of new players, the team at the moment would go back down easily so strength in depth is vital. That's 17 new signings with 3 more to come apparently and really I'm still not convinced we will stay up

1 hour ago, CyderInACan said:

Not quite as obviously Steven Luatua will be one of the mainstays of the team. Joe maybe? Siale? 

From the team this season I'd imagine Vui, Thomas, Luatua, Haining, Madigan, Piutau, Leuia, Morahan will all start next season

7 new signings, all championship players but all of them have been standouts v us this season. 

A few more premiership experience players needed to give us a chance of survival though in my opinion

https://www.bristolrugby.co.uk/news/lam-adds-seven-standout-championship-players-to-squad/

A whole 4 pages about last nights game, but apparently they don't care about us... 

How I view next season:

Attack: Our strongest area but still needs improving. With the ball in hand at times we can be electric, but we won't be given the space if we go up next year. Sunday showed that against a well organised defence without the space to run in we make mistakes and allow for the opposition to turn the ball over way too easily. Pat Lam needs to go back to the basics here in many ways, we were being too fancy on Sunday (trying too many inside channel passes) whilst also, when the ball came to our forwards they acted as a pivot, not running into contact and giving too slow ball for our backs. Lots of improvement needed.

Defence: Much improved since the Robinson days, our scramble defence on our try line is exceptional at times and has won us a couple of games. Despite that, our line speed is way too slow. Jersey were up in our players faces as soon as they got the ball and we gave them time to get the ball and make a decision, a luxury which we weren't afforded. Some of the tackling on Saturday (especially Madigans shocking attempt to tackle their scrum half) was very poor for 'international' standard players. We conceded 3 tries on Saturday due to mistakes, these need to be cut out sharpish because no premiership side will do the same.

Scrum/pack: Dominated again. Jersey got into our faces and pushed us back on nearly every scrum. this needs to be looked at for next season and although we are strengthening these are still international players who surely must be able to be competitive against the likes of Jersey. I'd imagine a forwards coach will be brought in who will hopefully be able to improve the pack and make it competitive next season. We can have the best backs in the world next year but if we can't be competitive in the forwards they'll get limited service and so they'll be rendered useless.

Overall, I'd say we are in a better position than we were 2 years ago, we have already been able to bring players in for next year who will all strengthen the squad and at times we've looked superb this year. The style of rugby is much better than under Robinson but we don't have the scrum superiority that we had last time round, despite apparently having a higher quality pack. With work on this though I can see us scraping survival, although it will be a massive ask at this rate.

Being a 'teenager' myself, I know one gashead (despite living in Westbury on trym...) they are really rare and so that makes it difficult to rip into them... 

1 hour ago, Port Said Red said:

I can't even bring myself to click on the link, looking at the still I think I will have that same cringy feel that I get watching David Brent........ I just can't...... 

At least David Brent means to be cringy, this kid is actually being serious.... 

4 minutes ago, Cheesleysmate said:

How many Tillsons?

6/7ths apparently, so not quite a full Tilson but pretty close

11 minutes ago, 22A said:

On their forum where they discuss the £3m loss, one poster reckons they're selling a player to Man C for £5m in the summer. That will clear their debts and give an extra £2m for team strengthening.  To quote Marshfieldgas (and i don't think he's joking); "Don’t worry it’s covered. Man City are preparing a £5 million bid for Tom Nichols in the summer, that will more than cover it."

I think he might be joking considering Nicholls has scored like 1 in 25 for them since joining from Peterborough (and becoming their 3rd most expensive signing in the process)... 

Well, that was awful.... 

Shocking performance all round, not helped by the most incompetent ref I've seen in a long time and a very well organised Jersey defence

Some of them are predicting they will take 200 to MK today.

Flashback to this....

Can't see this ending up like Sunderland, we were poor in that first half but took our chances, we've been solid this half and would have at least 3 with a competent referee

Now watch us lose 3-2....

38-3 up at London Scottish at half time, surely even bristol can't mess this up? 

18 minutes ago, Markred said:

We still had a higher capacity than our average attendance, our ground was still better than there shithole even with it being a construction site, if they get a new stadium like us and that’s a big if expect there attendances to rocket you would be surprised how many old ladies and a gentleman just don’t like the idea of standing up on a cold farm all day haha

We had something like a 98% attendance when compared to our capacity and only 3-4 clubs sold out the away end...

4 minutes ago, Bar BS3 said:

When Rovers have a new stadium and are top 6 in the Championship, they will be getting crowds of around 20k as well. 

There are just a couple of problems with that plan...!

It’s like saying that when I’m a millionaire stock market dealer, driving around in a Bentley, i’ll be married to Rachel Riley..! 

I honestly think they'd get 15-16k if they were in our position, they last averaged 20k 60 years ago and they haven't averaged over 10k for over 40 years, including when they were in the 2nd division back in the 90s

When we were bottom of league one, having not won a league game all season on a Tuesday night in October at home to Brentford, we still had an attendance of 10.6k. 

Rovers have yet to have an attendance higher than that this season.... 

Love this one:

After how much spent and won't even make the playoffs. Again. Shame.

We are currently 6th having spent less in the last five years than 16 other clubs in the league on transfer fees, don't quite get his point.

Oh and then Henbury Gas says:

Just love to get them going over there. Its like taking sweets from a kid. they still hate me because i proved them all wrong about an ex city supporter, now a dedicated gashead. 

Pretty certain you were proved wrong by club officials and went off with your tail between your legs mate...

2 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

One seriously does wonder what they actually do in training. Lots of indiscipline and conceding of penalties too. Seems to have been an issue for a number of years and here's hoping Lam can arrest the problem.

Looking at Bristol's remaining 7 fixtures they should win the lot with 3 of the better sides in the division visiting AG and us travelling to 4 of the current 5 bottom teams. 

Despite the indifferent performances credit to the players and staff for winning 15/15, no mean feat at any level. 

I think the disciple is improving massively, at scrum time it is still poor but in other areas its much better, I remember the Worcester play off final a few years ago where we had 4 yellows in two games and it cost us promotion. 

Our run in is favourable whereas Ealing still have to go to Leeds, Doncaster, the pirates and Jersey which are all tough games. 

Complete credit to everyone involved I agree, if we win our remaining 7 we'll be the first team ever to do so, some achievement that

1 hour ago, bemmyredjeff said:

In nearly all the televised games a lot of poor refereeing decisions and missed incidents have gone their way. I can remember three clear forward passes in one game being missed that all led to tries....and we moan about the top premier football teams getting the breaks against the lesser teams.

 

 

 

At the same time a lot of decisions go against us, no arms charge into the ruck yesterday that could very easily have been a red, Jordan Williams was tackled in the air but nothing was given, a Hugh tackle on leiua was missed, swings and roundabouts as they say

Another game where we play poorly and win! Set pieces were terrible yesterday, ealing were all over us but with the ball in hand we are outstanding at time, Jordan Williams was superb as we're many others. 

Hopefully that will mean some new signings in the next couple of weeks